The present disclosure relates to a drive transmission mechanism and an image forming apparatus with the same and particularly relates to a technique for transmitting a driving force to a removable unit, such as a developing device, attachable to and removable from the image forming apparatus.
In some image forming apparatuses, a developing device, a photoconductor device, and/or other process units are mounted removably on an apparatus body. By changing the combination of the apparatus body and the process unit, various image forming apparatuses can be produced which achieve various capabilities, for example, different numbers of print pages per unit time (PPM: pages per minute) or different numbers of copies per unit time (CPM: copies per minute).
In order to removably mount the process unit as described above, what is essential is a drive transmission mechanism for transmitting a driving force from a drive mechanism contained in the apparatus body to the process unit. Such a drive transmission mechanism generally employs a coupling structure configured to transmit a driving force from the drive mechanism to the process unit by mating a drive-side coupling part provided on the apparatus body side with a driven-side coupling part provided on the process unit side.